The powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity

The hyperliberal Counterpunch calls out Democrats who claim they were duped into voting to authorize President Bush to go to war in Iraq. John Walsh writes that former Senator Bob Graham has reported that the Democratic members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, which he chaired, knew in the fall of 2002 that the intelligence the administration was championing was suspect, and that four of those Democrats in addition to Graham voted no. Walsh plausibly argues that other senators should have known the intelligence was flawed as well:

There were 19 members of that committee, all of whom had to know that Bush was lying. Only the four in caps above voted against the war. But if 19, out of what is often called a small and intimate club of 100 Senators, knew that the war was based on a lie, can one believe that the rest did not know? And given the bloodletting that was about to be unleashed, why did none of these 19, including Graham, release the "confidential" NIE report? What sort of men and women are these?

It's a question worth asking.